A Quick Recap of Rick Thornquist's Visit to My House for His Infocom Project

Sun, 03/21/2010 - 4:20pm — Bill Loguidice

Rick Thornquist, who is working on a wonderful book and companion DVDs on Infocom (with a particular focus on the individuals who made the company tick), stopped by today on his packed trip schedule to get some additional photos from my collection. We set up various systems, including the TI-99/4a, Mac Classic, Atari ST, etc., so he could photograph the Infocom classics running on them (due to their age of course, some of my systems, like the IBM PC 5150 and TRS-80 Model I refused to work properly for us). My house in New Jersey was one of many destinations on his trip, which started at his home in Canada and took (and will continue to take) him throughout the US to both gather material from and interview (in HD, of course), those involved with (and interested in) the company. It's a heck of a project, and from what I could see, he's doing everything exactly as any true fan would want, so the end product (probably a coffee table book with companion DVDs) is definitely one to look out for after it's completed, particularly based on some of the great stories he was telling me. Between this, and Jason Scott's soon-to-be-released, Get Lamp, documentary, both Infocom and text adventure fans in general have a great deal to look forward to. As always, we'll keep you posted on the latest with all of these projects.

Comments

I look forward to the final product. I bet it felt really fun to be a part of his journey and contribute to the eye candy. Thanks for sharing, Bill.

Hearing about things like this just makes me nod my head in agreement. Preservation of videogame knowledge is important, can be done, and should be done. I wish Rick the best of luck with this project.

It's great that your amazing retro collection has proved an invaluable resource to budding historians and authors. That's very generous of you.

What are your future plans for your collection? Keep it in the basement, start some sort of museum, sell it all of when the going rate is astronomical, or what? I'm just curious... :-)

Well, it's just hoarding (or should I say, worse hoarding) if I don't actively use it and contribute historical materials either for my own projects or for those of others. I just wish I had more time to do stuff like that. It's very difficult with a full-time job, family, other work, etc.

Future plans? Definitely not to sell it, though I will be weeding duplicates (and beyond) certainly, which is something I'd have done more of already if time permitted. Otherwise it will be to use and enjoy it for as long as I live (perhaps my kids can sell it off for good money after my passing). Even as a child, even when I didn't know it as such, collecting this stuff has always brought me great joy. The downside of course is the sheer volume I've acquired over the years, which makes my collection and actual usage unwieldy. I've certainly run into storage issues of late, which is something that definitely needs to be addressed at some point, though I have not figured that out as of yet.

I had planned the next AA TV episode to be on the Laseractive, but since the stuff I was working with with Rick is still out, I'll instead be focusing on those systems. It's all stuff I would have gotten to anyway. On the desk (in the arcade area) at the moment is my TRS-80 Model I setup, which I'm not really in the mood to do, but since it's there, it's probably as good as any. Also out (in the office) are the TI-99/4a, which has tons of fascinating things I want to get to (PEB, MBX, etc.), Atari ST/Ste/Falcon, Mac classic, IBM PC 5150, etc. I honestly don't know how I'll be doing the coverage though - at minimum each will need multi-parts - as the YouTube format lends itself better to single product focus rather than broad looks.